


he loiters with a backward smile

by TolkienGirl



Series: All That Glitters Gold Rush!AU: The Full Series [253]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Fluff? almost?? as close as we get, Gen, Interlude, Mithrim, Mithrim Stables, Pets, title from a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:14:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24749704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TolkienGirl/pseuds/TolkienGirl
Summary: Dreams, Sticks has explained, is where we go in the dark.
Relationships: Amlach & Amras, Amlach & Arien, Amlach & Maedhros | Maitimo, Amlach & Original Female Character(s)
Series: All That Glitters Gold Rush!AU: The Full Series [253]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1300685
Comments: 5
Kudos: 13





	he loiters with a backward smile

Belle sleeps on her side, with one hand covering her empty eye. Frog sleeps on his side, too, facing, her, tucking his head under her chin, finding her other hand and holding it fast. He doesn’t take the eye hand. She needs it, so the dreams do not fall out.

 _Dreams_ , Sticks has explained, _is where we go in the dark._

It is not dark. And it is not very cold. Frog falls back, away from Belle, and into the sweet-smelling hay. He can hear the whiffling snuffling horse-beasts, but from above—

—yes, he has crept to the edge of the hay-loft and looks down—

They are not so large. They are long and smooth and have soft eyes. Soft eyes, and, he knows, soft noses.

“You’ll fall!”

That’s Sticks, her hair full of long straws, and her mouth full of anger. Frog blinks at her. He won’t fall. He never fell _there_ , and _there_ , he climbed higher walls and harder ledges.

“No,” Frog says, because he says _no_ , now, and other words and names. But at the sound of Sticks’ talking, Belle sits up, her hands in her lap in the hay, her hair in her eye and the empty eye.

“Frog,” she says. “Be careful.”

The doors creak. The wind sneaks in. And someone else, who is not the wind. Frog climbs back to Belle.

“Hullo?”

Frog is obliged to turn around again, twisting on his knees, so that they can all crawl to the edge of the loft. Frog is in the middle, now. He likes to feel Belle and Sticks on either side of him. From above, he wonders if they look like horses.

Below is red. It’s the other Red. The one called _Amras_.

“Hullo,” Amras-Red says again, coughing funny in his throat. He drags his boots. He shuffles. Frog’s feet _are_ a little cold, out of the hay. Even though Beren found the shoes again (Beren says they are _moccasins_ ), Frog lost them again, too.

He curls his feet beneath him, sitting back. Belle must not see his feet.

“Amras,” Belle says. “Hello.”

“It’s cold,” Amras says. “Did you have enough blankets?”

He is not like Russandol. Russandol said pleasant things. Even when Frog didn’t know all the words, he liked the sound of them. Russandol had to be quiet, _mouse-mouse_ , as Sticks says, because of the bad men, but he whispered and hummed and found his way around the corners of the walls.

Is Russandol dreaming, now?

“We slept well,” Belle says. “Thank you.”

(Before. Before, there was a girl who stood on her feet in the grey light and slipped away. She had a pleasant face. Frog was still half-sleeping. He looked at her from one eye, as if he were Belle.)

Amras says, “There’s breakfast.”

“I should hope so,” Sticks mutters. She does not much care for Amras. Says he is a twig.

“Thank you,” Belle says. “We will come down. Sticks, be careful on the ladder. Help Frog.”

Amras doesn’t run away; he waits. Frog doesn’t fall; his feet curve on the rough rungs of the ladder. He remembers the walls, the dreams, the voices.

If people do not die, do they come back?

“Something else,” Amras mutters.

“None of your tricks,” Sticks accuses, but Amras says,

“Isn’t a trick.”

_Something else_ is a lean mother cat and four kittens.

(Amras calls them kittens; it is a new word.)

“Oh,” Frog says. The words drop out of him, softer than he thought the dreams would. “Oh, oh, oh.”

“Her name’s Jib,” Amras explains, lifting one of the clawing handfuls of fur up. “Haven’t named the wee ones yet. Thought you might…” His voice trails away.

“Thank you,” Belle says. Belle says thank you a good deal. Sometimes, Frog heard her say it to Russandol, though he didn’t understand for what.

“I want the black one,” Sticks whispers, stroking it between the ears. Her eyes are very wide. That means _happiness_ , that look.

She told him so.

“They have to stay with their mother,” Amras says. “It’s very important that they stay with their mother.”

But he promises that Sticks and Frog can visit them whenever they wish.

They leave the babies with the mother (Frog has never seen a mother before), and they climb up the path to the fort. The babies will be safe, but he thinks about the tall, lonely horse of last night and is a little sad and cold inside, to be going away.

“Where are your shoes, Frog-boy?”

“Lost.”

Belle doesn’t scold. Belle never scolds.

Belle used to have another eye. He only realized that when he saw Russandol with just one hand. It had never lived in his mind before. Did Belle want Russandol to be like her?

 _No._ The word for that is no.

Amras is talking to Sticks. Sticks is talking to Amras. The black kitten changed things. For Frog, the tall and lonely horse changed things. Let him breathe, let him sleep.

Frog reaches for Belle before they go inside. Her eye looks down on him.

 _Thank you_ falls out, like dreams and crying do.


End file.
